The election result no one is happy with

This morning my friend Shai, a politics junkie, changed his Facebook status to "It's complicated". He was referring not to his relationship with his wife, but rather to the inconclusive results of the Israeli elections. Right now, no one knows who will lead the next government.

Tzipi Livni's Kadima edged out Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud party by a single Knesset seat, but this does not mean Livni will be Israel's next prime minister. If Livni fails to cobble together a coalition, as she did when Ehud Olmert resigned three months ago, then we might have a Biberman government after all.

But Livni, too, has indicated her willingness to "work with" Avigdor Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beiteinu party won 15 seats. Indeed, Haaretz's Yossi Verter writes today that "without Lieberman, Livni has no government". So whoever the next prime minister is, the governing coalition will almost certainly have a strongly hawkish, populist, rightwing element.

For blogger Carmel Vaisman, who is writing her doctoral thesis in communications at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the electoral results are a source of enormous grief.

Carmel campaigned for the Green Movement-Meimad, a social-environmental party that did not even receive a sufficient number of votes to clear the electoral threshold.

I don't know if I can explain adequately my heartache and the sense of alienation I feel in my stomach; the sense that I do not belong to my nation ... I think I deserve to live in a state that is led by good people who want to serve the public and not cheat it, a state in which a social-environmental party is one of the large parties in parliament and that this is considered the natural order of things. Do I really need to emigrate for this?

Once I was not even willing to discuss this option, but based on the gradually accumulating evidence there is really no place for me in a state that is perpetually at war, and in which there will never be respectable, decent work ... There are those who claim that it is important for me to stay here because there must be a minority that will slowly become a mass presence. But it is painful to grow alone, to struggle for all the things that are natural for Canadians and Swedes.

Why shouldn't I make my life easier amongst many people like me? I think I am ready to live in a pluralistic, calm place. A place where people are willing to gamble on a leader who says: 'Yes we can'

Issa, a Christian Arab who is a student at the University of Haifa, wrote a note in Hebrew and posted it on his Facebook profile, explaining why he voted for Hadash, the Arab-Jewish Socialist party.

I tried to find the party that reminds me of myself, with my complex identity that is like paella - composed of such a mess of ingredients, yet is so tasty

He goes on to describe Hadash's multi-confession candidates, which include a Muslim party leader, two Christian Arabs and a "really cool Jew who is a bit of a nerd, like me, and probably a Zionist, but most importantly a great human being". The point, Issa writes, is to vote from your heart – and above all, vote. It does not bother him to vote for an opposition party that has no chance of sitting in the government. At least he will be proud of the party for which he has voted.

The ensuing thread of comments from Issa's Christian, Muslim and Jewish friends is a fascinating read for two reasons: it is polite and rational, despite clear disagreements, and it takes place in Hebrew, not Arabic. One wonders how Lieberman's supporters would respond to this indisputable evidence that Israel is a multicultural, multi-ethnic democracy, whether they like it or not.

Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli Middle East analyst who was born and raised in Iran, describes the dilemma he faced at the polling booth in his tragicomic English-language essay. Should he vote with his heart or with his head? His heart was with Green Movement-Meimad, but his head told him the party hadn't a chance of clearing the electoral threshold and he'd better vote for Livni. Because if Likud wins, writes Meir, Mahmoud Ahmadenijad will be happy.

Today it does not seem as though anyone is really happy with the election results – not even Lieberman's supporters. Even my friends who voted for the rightwing parties tell me they are filled with foreboding when they think about Israel's future.